Silver Lining

Chapter 1: Talking Paintings and Icy Water

Lillie's long and wavy brown hair was tied up into a messy bun as she tentatively dipped her tanned toe into the deep blue water. She withdrew her toe quickly; the water was extremely cold and she did not want to go swimming anyway.

She marched back over to where her mother was sitting rubbing sun-cream into Milo's, her younger brother, back while her father stood beside them, his longish brown hair flapping slightly in the gentle breeze.

"It's really cold," she complained grumpily. She was still annoyed with her parents for making her change school. "I want to go home," she whined.

"Come on Lil," said her father exasperatedly, "we've only just got here. I'll come with you to the water, we can go in together."

Lillie consented but she pouted all the way to the water's edge. She simply stood on the bank while her father steeled himself as he walked up to his knees in the icy water; Lillie could see that he too found the temperature of the water unbearable. "Come on Lil, don't make me splash you," he said grinning.

"Don't!" shrieked Lillie, a small smile beginning to creep onto her face, her green eyes lighting up. Realising what was happening, she immediately straightened her face; she was supposed to be grumpy and she wouldn't stop until her parents gave in.

But her dad ignored her cry and swinging his hands down through the air, he brought them crashing into the water, a huge cloud of icy water came swooping at Lillie like an overgrown blue bat. "Daaaad!" she cried bracing herself for the impact of the water, but it never came.

Opening her eyes she looked down at herself, there was not a single droplet of water anywhere on her body. The stone around her feet was drenched but her feet themselves were completely dry.

She looked at her father; the smile had faded slightly from his face and there was a hint of fear and anxiety in his blue eyes. Lillie knew that look: it was the look her father gave her every time something strange happened around Lillie.

Unfortunately strange things seemed to happen a very often around her, just last week, for instance, Milo had accidentally ripped off the arm of his Teddy. The Teddy in question had been one of Lillie's old ones, Lillie had loved her Teddy when she was younger, and when she had found Milo crying on the floor of his room, she had somehow managed to reattach the arm to the bear.

"Anna! Lillie's father called. Emerging out of the water and Lillie's mother looked up.

"What is it, Bertie?" she called back.

"We have to go," he said, in the tone of voice that was reserved for Lillie's 'accidents'.

Lillie's mother sighed deeply and started packing everything back into the large wicker bag that they had brought with them.

When they had all climbed back into the small car they drove off, Lillie as usual didn't do up her seatbelt..

"Why are we going?" demanded Milo. Milo Whitehead was seven years old and, if possible, even more stubborn than his older sister. His blue eyes and blonde hair was quite different to Lillie's and they showed off their Slavic heritage. To tell the truth, Lillie didn't really look like anyone in the family; her father had blue eyes and his chestnut-brown hair was much lighter than Lillie's and her mother also had blue eyes but her hair was champagne blond.

"Lillie," said her mother simply.

Even at his age Milo knew what she meant and he lapsed into silence fiddling with his seatbelt.

Despite being perpetually annoyed with her mother, Lillie was extremely mature for her age and she did not like it when her mother was angry with her. "Mum, I promise I didn't mean to," she said.

"I know, but we need to-" she started, but exactly what they needed to do remained a mystery to Lillie for, at that moment, there was a screech of tyres from the left, someone screamed, then there was the sound of metal on metal, the glass beside Lillie smashed and then she was thrown to her right. Lillie landed on what felt like stone and before she passed out she smelled burning.

…

Ten minutes later paramedics were on the scene, a passing motorist had seen what had happened and had immediately called the emergency line. Jean-Baptiste was new to the job and the sight of the burned cars and the six bodies, two in one car and four in the other, was a bit too much for him and so he walked past the blackened skeletons of the cars.

Then he saw it, just beyond the crash, a small limp form lying on the ground. He ran towards it, it was a young girl; her small body must have been propelled through the window. When he reached her he placed two fingers on her neck. He waited, he was about to give up when he felt a pulse, a weak one but a pulse nevertheless.

"Ici!" he cried to the other paramedics. "Elle est toujours vivante!" Two more paramedics came rushing over holding a stretcher, Jean-Baptiste helped them lift her onto the stretcher and then she was carried to the ambulance.

…

Lillie's eyes cracked open, and then immediately closed again. She tried again but the brightness hurt her head and so she kept her eyes tight shut. She heard movement and voices she couldn't recognise or understand; she angled her head towards the source of the voices and she found that the light was much less bright and tentatively she opened one of them. Her vision, however, was still blurry so all she could make out were indistinct figures.

She started when a gentle voice beside her spoke out in slow French, "Etes-vous bien?"

In her current state it took her a while to understand that he was asking if she was OK. She ached all over but she had always been one to play down any injury and so she nodded.

"Voulez-vous de l'eau?" the same voice asked again. Once again she nodded. She heard the man walk away.

Gradually her vision returned and she realised she was in a white hospital bed. She looked around: everything was white, the wall behind her, the curtains on her left and right, the bed, the bedside table. It was so white that for one ridiculous moment, Lillie felt a little bit like she was in a bed of snow.

She was about to try using her voice, when one of the curtains was ripped open revealing an old woman wearing hideous lime green robes, which made Lillie scream, although the sound that issued from her throat was more of a rasp. She saw a doctor holding a glass of water in his hand running towards her, "Madame!" he shouted at the woman but she ignored him.

She turned her black eyes on Lillie and said in a voice that reminded her of sandpaper, "Happy birthday my little acid pop!"

The doctor finally reached her but the woman slapped him and started talking to him in rapid French, which Lillie was too shocked to try and understand. This was wrong, this woman must have made a mistake; Lillie's birthday wasn't until the 31st and besides, she had never seen this woman in her life. The woman pulled out a few sheets of official looking paper and shoved them in the man's face.

She turned to face Lillie. "You're coming with me," she said in that horrible voice. She grabbed Lillie by the wrist, making Lillie yelp with pain and dragged her out of the ward, along some white corridors, that smelled of medicine, out of the hospital and only stopped once they had reached the edge of the parking lot.

Here, Lillie regained control of herself and pulled her arm out of the woman's grip. The woman turned to face Lillie, an unfathomable expression upon her face. "Who are you?" asked Lillie.

"I'm your great-aunt, but more importantly your guardian. Now come with me," she rasped reaching forward to grab Lillie with one bony hand but Lillie dodged out of the way.

She refused to believe this and said, "You're not my guardian. I think you've got the wrong girl. And if you're my great-aunt how come I've never seen you before?"

"My squib sister was evicted from our family, that is why, now come!" ordered the old woman with a nasty smile that revealed dirty yellow teeth.

Then the strange woman grabbed her arm again, and the whole world twisted into what seemed to be a very narrow tube that Lillie was forced through herself. She clamped her eyes shut thinking she might die, but thankfully, it stopped. When she felt the ground under her feet again, her knees gave way and she started retching.

She got shakily back to her feet, breathing heavily, but her breath caught when she realised that they had just moved; the mountain landscape of south-east France had been replaced by rolling hills with the sun rising over their crests. But what really drew Lillie's attention was the enormous house in front of her. It was more of a mansion and normally Lillie would have loved to come here but at the moment she was a bit too shocked to do anything.

"Wonderful, isn't it?" asked the woman, once again causing Lillie, who had forgotten she was there, to jump.

"Y-yes," Lillie just about managed to stammer. She looked back to the mansion, and saw someone walking down the drive towards them. The man, whose name turned out to be Ezekielis, exchanged greetings with the woman, who was Dulcia. Ezekielis was the thinnest man that Lillie had ever seen; he could be no more than 30 years old but his face was so skeletal that he could have passed for a hundred. The drooping skin had a yellowish tinge and his hair was so greasy it looked almost wet. Lillie was almost surprised when he pulled the heavy-looking open gate with such ease.

"Is this her?" Ezekielis spat, pointing at Lillie.

"Unfortunately," Dulcia replied. "Go!" she then barked at Lillie pointing up the driveway. "Little muggle brat. I'm sure Dianysia is so proud of her squib children and her grandchildren."

"Is the Dianysia you're talking about my grandmother?" piped up Lillie putting on a show of courage that she really did not feel.

"Not that it is any of your business but yes it is."

They entered the mansion. She pretended not to be impressed by the high roof, the enormous windows, the giant chandelier and all the statues and everything else in the enormous room. "Where's my family?" Lillie asked hopefully.

"Dead?" laughed the old woman.

Lillie's stomach churned and she felt as though she was about to start retching again. "What? You're lying!" she choked.

"Oh am I?" crowed the woman.

Lillie felt tears burning at the back of her eyes blurring her vision so she couldn't see where she was being dragged now. After about a minute of twisting corridors and long stairwells, they stopped.

"This is your room," said Dulcia. Lillie felt herself being pushed into a room where she fell, sprawling on the floor. She heard a door slam behind her and Dulcia's footsteps retreating down the corridor.

Lillie didn't move; she just lay there on the floor sobbing until she had no tears left. What seemed like hours later, she sat up and wiped her eyes. She wanted nothing more than to crawl into a corner and stay there for a long time.

She looked around her new bedroom, it was about twice the size of her last one, and was painted a dark green colour. She had a queen-sized bed, covered with a green duvet, with a large silver snake at the centre. It was probably the fanciest thing that Lillie had ever had, but she didn't care about that.

There wasn't a window; most of the light seemed to be coming from oil lamps on the walls, one on each wall to be precise. There was a painting of someone she didn't know on one wall with a desk underneath it, and a chair and a bookcase against the other. There was a door which when opened led to an en suite bathroom.

Lillie leant against one of the walls and tried to remember what had happened, for surely this woman could not be right. Her parents couldn't be dead. She needed them. Any anger she had felt for her parents disappeared, but it was not replaced, instead it felt like a large hole was growing inside her stomach; a hole into which Lillie wanted to disappear. Then she remembered, they had gone to a lake. She had had one of her 'accidents' and they had left immediately. Then, what? She had been talking with her mother when there had been a screech of tyres, an ear-splitting crashing sound, shattering noise and then she had been thrown.

Lillie clapped a hand over her mouth; there must have been a car crash. "Oh, god!" she moaned before once again falling intro dry sobs.

What felt like weeks later Lillie stopped and wiping her nose on her sleeve, she stood up and looked gloomily around the room once more.

"Thank goodness you've stopped bawling," said a haughty, drawling voice from behind her. She spun around; she hadn't heard anyone enter the room. But there was no one in the room apart from her. She looked around, but the room was definitely empty, "Over here, foolish child," she turned to face the direction from which the sound had come from. But the only thing there was the painting and the desk. She noticed a letter, on the desk and began moving towards it when she noticed that the painting was moving. She took a step back in shock and fell again. "Don't start again," said the man in the portrait.

"You- you- you can talk?" Lillie stammered, completely astonished.

"Of course I can," said the man, sounding almost offended, "Now can you please open that letter, it's been on this table for almost a week now." Lillie opened her mouth to speak but the man shushed her so she did as she was told. She picked up the letter from the desk and looked at the address:

Lillie Whitehead
Selwyn Mansion
Gloucestershire

Lillie knew the name Selwyn from somewhere, had it been her grandmother's name?

Deciding that it was, Lillie opened the letter which had been shut using a wax seal with a crest she did not recognise embedded into it.

Dear Miss Whitehead,
We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.
Term begins on the September 1. We await your owl by no later than the August 28.
Yours sincerely,

Filius Flitwick
Deputy Headmaster

Author's note:

Okay, I have just redone this chapter and I hope it's better than before, it's certainly longer and it makes more sense.

Thanks to the reviewers who made me rewrite this chapter. You helped kickstart me into action.

Original A/N:

This is my first proper fic; I would like to thank Facetaker and AnimeFlowerGirl for helping me to finally start writing.

Please read and review as it would really be encouraging for me to know that at least one person out there like this.